As it turns out, it has been nearly two years since I attempted to recreate a carrot salad I’d had at The Spotted Pig, completely lost interest in it halfway through the cooking process, burned dinner and went out for a fairly forgettable dish at a nearby restaurant instead. What a shame, right? This salad deserves better than to be passive-aggressively swapped out for noodles and left to collect dust for years.

So let’s try this again, because it couldn’t be simpler. You roast carrots with olive oil, salt, pepper and a smidgen of cumin. When they’re done, you top them with slices of fresh avocado, some squeezes of lemon juice and fresh seasoning. And that’s it. But this is so much more fun that your standard roasted carrots, ubiquitous alongside every winter roast. I mean, it’s 85 degrees out, I don’t need a side of mashed potatoes. No, these are summer roasted carrots, straight from the market, contrasted with fresh ingredients.

And of course, finding some rainbow carrots at the Greenmarket is not a prerequisite for this dish. But if you do find them, it’s nice to know a way to cook them that will only show off how pretty they are — unlike the time I made an ill-advised purple/yellow/orange carrot cake, which is I think all we need to say about that.

Roast the carrots: Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Toss the carrot chunks in a medium bowl with two tablespoons of the olive oil, cumin and as generous of a helping of salt and pepper as you like. (We like a lot. Especially with sweet things like carrots.)

Spread them on a roasting sheet (I lined ours with foil because despite having a dishwasher these days, old must-create-fewer-dishes-at-all-times habits die hard) and roast for about 20 minutes, or until tender and browned. Of course, roasting time will vary depending on the thickness of your carrots. Our heftier chunks took over 30.

Finish the salad: Once the carrots are roasted, arrange them on a serving platter with slices of avocado on top. Drizzle the salad with the last tablespoons of olive oil, lemon juice and extra salt and pepper, if it needs it. Eat immediately.

I have this thing where anytime I see a pile of those rainbow-like carrots at the market, I have to clap my hands and bounce on my heels a little. Every. Time. I love them so. And apparently it happens with photos of them too. And with avocado?! Perfection. Hope you are feeling great!

If I buy tender carrots, I never peel them before roasting them because I love how the skin wrinkles just a little bit around the carrot flesh. I always line our baking sheet with foil, too, and I have always had a dishwasher – so it’s not just you, Deb. Love the idea of balancing the sweetness of the carrot with creamy avocados.

Wow, that looks fabulous. I’m definitely trying this soon. I used to never like cooked carrots until I discovered roasting them like this – I’ll use carrot chips and roast them with whole garlic cloves and rosemary in olive oil until they’re almost blackened and it’s positively divine! The sweetness that comes out is just incredible. I usually make them in winter time, but this version with the fresh avocado is supremely tempting – I may have to do it!

Looks good (as usual). Here’s my question: Have you found a reliable source for ripe avocados in the city? Spoiled, California ex-pat, that I am can’t get used to having to buy them 4 days before I’m craving them! Thanks!

Gabriela — Can’t say I’ve found one. This was a bodega avocado, and it didn’t have the flavor I’m used to from the black-skinned ones. That said, it was ready the next day — things often sit out longer at bodegas, so at least for avocados, it’s perfect.

Luisa — Oh, right he is! Excellent catch. I was wondering if they parboiled them there since mine took so long to get soft in the middle… My version can be the “lazy” one.

hmmm, i have carrots from the farmer’s market in the fridge, but these days i eat them raw, dipped in lemony hummus. we love roasted carrots, they are a staple around here, especially in cooler weather. i would make this today, but my problem (see gabriela, above) is: where do i get avocados that don’t need to sit on the counter for three days before i can dig into them?

Carrots will be in the market bag tomorrow, can’t wait to make this dish. I practically lived on carottes au cumin when living in France. Such a classic combination – and love the addition of avocado here. I totally admit to wanting to bake carrot cake with multicolor carrots too, haha! LOVE that cake – and perhaps it’s just me, but it’s actually for the cake, not the icing! ;)

mmm, looks perfect. i spend quite a while at the union square market on saturday, its like produce heaven! AND i finally found those sour cherries!!! it was actually my third trip there in the past 2 weeks, and somehow those guys were already gone/not there yet…anywho, now i’ll be making sour cherry jam! thanks for inspiring me :)

I accidentally made the best roasted carrots ever when I couldn’t find the roasting rack, and used carrots under a chicken. They were delicious, sweet as candy. I now roast carrots in a chicken broth reduction and olive oil, and roast until the liquid is gone, and a bit longer. Roasted veggies almost make winter enjoyable.

I’ll have to give this salad a try; it sounds delish. Perfectly ripened avocadoes are so worth the wait.

The Spotted Pig is on my list of restaurants to try next time I go to NYC – it looks fabulous.

I made a similar carrot and avocado salad a few months back, inspired by a Jamie Oliver recipe. It involves tossing an orange in to roast with the carrots and then using the roasted orange juice in the dressing – it’s fantastic!

Beautiful…I have to admit I’ve never bothered with the salads at Spotted Pig…all of the unhealthy stuff is so good! Would it be too tacky to strew some unsweetened coconut through this salad? I’ve been on sort of an avocado and coconut kick lately…

It looks incredibly delicious. I’m sure this would kill the health value of the salad, but I bet there’s some kind of delicious creamy dressing that would complement this beautifully to mix it up a bit.

I see Luisa and arugulove have already mentioned Jamie’s salad, so I’ll forgo linking it again. However, I will say that I’ve made that version several times and it’s definitely one of my favorite go-tos. Really the only differences are the orange, herbs and red wine vin. I’ll try yours and probably love that, too. Thanks!

Oh, I want pretty carrots in pretty colors. Around here I only see orange and it’s too hot for farmer’s markets (FL). And we call those bodega avacados–the weird huge ones with the green shell–local. I much prefer the Haas/CA avacados. I can understand when they are ripe and to me they have a more butter-like texture.

In a million years, I would never have thought to put avocado with roasted carrots and in a salad, yet. Never! This is why I like your site, you bring this sort of thing and I get to stretch. Thanks, Deb.

Looks like a great combination, I’ll definitely try this. Now I’m a little sad that we only planted the regular orange carrots in our garden, the different colors look amazing, definitely on the list for the next season. We love your blog, both recipes and pictures are really good.

Yum! Now, I would really want to have rainbow carrots for this! Wonder where I’d find them? And I’m sad that you have 85-degree weather, it’s gonna be 101 today, (Dallas), followed by 102, 103 for the next two days. Blech. This does look so good though, might be worth it turning on the oven!

Sounds delish! And I don’t even like avacado! Too bad not every American has such a beautiful market within driving distance (read: within a driving distance that is so short that it does not require stopping overnight at a hotel or more than two tanks of gas to reach! :-)); good recipes start with great food, of course! :-)

Carrots are one of my favorite veggies. I need to know though, where does one procure purple carrots? I know Oklahoma isn’t as refined as other states, but surely, I can get my hands on them somewhere around here.

Oh Yum. I just happen to have carrots and avocado and home right now and will be making this for dinner; I wonder if I could roast my carrots on the BBQ? I love your photos of the carrots, absolutely beautiful!

Oooh. That looks TASTY. Carrots are one of my favorite vegetables, so I always wonder why we don’t eat them more. I’d make this tonight, only unfortunately I don’t have an avocado available. That is the trouble of living in an area where avocados in a grocery store are rock hard and you have to carefully plan meals in advance to use them so they have time to ripen on the counter. It’ll probably take me another week or so before I can use this recipe. (So sad!)

The salad looks great and my 5 year old loves carrots and avocado. I’ll have to try and see. Thanks, by the way, for including your beautiful pictures on your printable version of the recipe. Great for visualizing as I page through my recipe binders.

So excited to see this! I grow rainbow carrots in my garden every year and they are so easy and always delicious! Mine will be ready to pull in just a few day… the hunt begins for the perfect avocados! Thank you!

perfect timing again deb! i enjoyed this simple, tasty dish last night with the hubby. i dislike cooked carrots – raw is my choice – but roasted? so much better than mushy carrot coins! i was given some carrots from someone else’s CSA box & thought i waited a day too long…but the slight softening was fine so i didn’t have to roast as long. is that bad? who cares, they still tasted good! also used up the ripening avocado & lime juice since i just used up the last lemon. want some of those beautiful rainbow carrots next time though!

I made this as a side dish last night with grilled tuna steaks, and it was absolutely delicious. I had some brussel sprouts to use up too, so I roasted them along with the carrots. Utterly delicious. I’ll make this again and again!

i love roasted carrots, just like this. we probably have them as dinner at least once a week because my kids think they are “carrot fries” when you cut them the right way, and because a pack of carrots can last an awful long time in the fridge.
****adding avocados was delicious, although i’ll probably cool the carrots more towards room temp next time!****

I made this last night and really enjoyed it. I need to roast the carrots longer next time, but after giving it 40 minutes I just needed to serve dinner (not sure what happened there, carrots). Thanks for the recipe!

I wanted to make this, but didn’t have carrots, cumin, or lemons! I did have sweet potatoes, fresh thyme and limes! It was beautiful, and a big hit! I let the sweet potatoes get a little crunchy, and they contrasted so nicely with the smooth avocado. next time I get carrots in the CSA box, I will be making it with them!

We made this salad a few weeks ago and didn’t change much. Instead of using ground cumin, I sprinkled cumin seeds over the carrots. I absolutely agree with it needing generous salt and pepper.

While good, it didn’t completely blow me away because everything in the salad was soft — soft roasted carrots, soft creamy avocados. I wanted just a little bit of crunch, too. When I make it again, I might try adding some roasted broccoli or some finely chopped pecans.

I was savoring the last of my pasta, cauliflower, walnut, feta cheese after church today. Had a lonely avocado resting on the counter and found this interesting ‘salad’. I used cumin seeds too – and a grind more of salt. Liked it a lot! Akila’s comment made me smile as I still had plenty of ‘crunch’ from the walnuts in the pasta.
A nice dinner on a very cold day in the south [I’m writing this in the winter of 2010] – up from 10 degrees this morning to a sultry 27 degrees at noon!

Oh gosh! I was browsing around to see if you had a recipe for avocados and found this. Oh.My.God, Amazing! I love roasted carrots as a side dish (sometimes I eat a big bowl of them for a week straight) and I love avocados on a romaine salad. I never would have thought to combine these two together. The citrus really makes it pop :) I loveee this dish. Thanks!

I’m a paleo-eater and I made this tonight and it was delicious! Thanks for the great idea! I sprinkled some fresh thyme leaves before roasting the carrots and they added a beautiful mild aroma when the carrots were done…yum.

This is probably my new favorite go-to salad. I made it for a pot luck this week and it was a huge hit. I was kind of busy this week so I had to make it in stages… I actually ended up cutting the carrots and tossing them with olive oil and cumin the night before I roasted them. Not sure if this increased the delicious quotient or not. Such a subtle flavor and so simple yet so delicious. I was concerned about my avocado not ripening quickly enough but the ole, avocado in a brown paper bag for 2 days, did the trick. Glorious! Thanks for posting this great recipe.

It sounds like some folks have prepared this is advance for potluck– I’ve been thinking of preparing this to serve as a part of a dinner buffet this summer. My question is– Deb recommends that it be eaten immediately– is this to preserve the color/freshness of the avocado?

Nicole — It is because of the avocado and because I personally don’t like roasted vegetables hours after they were roasted. Nevertheless, it probably won’t last long enough to become in any way unpleasant. :)

I cannot get enough of this salad! Gorgeous, snazzy, and delectable! Eyecatching and tongue-tingling! I ate it many meals in a row. This worked great with EV organic coconut oil (but the olive oil is better). I love the avocado–ingenious combination.

Made this last night with 2TBL olive oil instead of 3, and it was wonderful! We may add more avocado because we love it. The lemon on the salad was fantastic. Who would have thought to combine carrots and avocados!
A great way to use up fresh carrots. We will definitely use this salad at picnics this summer!

This is so good! My carrots didn’t turn brown (maybe I was too hungry to wait for them to roast longer) but still delicious with a little crunch, I love the combination of the warm tender carrot and the cold avocado.

What a fantastic recipe! Honestly, I was in the mood to try something new and happened to have all of the ingredients on hand. The bf and I were pleasantly surprised at just how well this combination worked, it’s so refreshing and makes a wonderful side. We have a plethora of yellow onion right now, so I added some onion to the carrot mixture and let it all roast together. Just before serving, I added in a little bit of baby spinach as well.
Thank you for sharing such incredible recipes. Your site is really inspirational in both your love for cooking as well as your keen attention to detail prevalent within your beautiful photos. So, thank you :)

We made this last night and two of us devoured it! I substituted the lemon with lime (we live in Costa Rica and can’t get lemons but the limes are superb) and used about half of what your recipe called for – seemed to be plenty! Otherwise I didn’t do anything different and it was perfect! My husband said he would like this to become a regular at our house. Thanks!!!

yum.
As Avocados are out of season now :( I’ve just been making the roasted carrots portion of this recipe. I added carraway seeds and then ate the freshly roasted roots with broccoli (braised, with leeks!).

I had left over carrots that I put in the fridge and nibbled on cold straight out of the container a few times. And then for a second side dish for one, I had the carrots cold with some goat cheese and toasted pecans. I bet this last would be really delicious with reheated carrots too, I just don’t have a microwave

Found this while searching the recipe index for a way to use up a stray avocado. It is a combination I would never have thought to try- love stuff that it is different! My spouse is iffy on cumin so I reduced it by half, and instead of lemon and salt I sprinkled it with fancy flaked citrus flavored salt that had been languishing in the cupboard. All that was in the house was a package of plain old supermarket “baby” carrots, but it was still really, really good and enjoyed by all!

Absolutely delicious. Luckily, roasted a few more carrots than you called for since we nibbled them down while testing for doneness. Yummy on their own but really special combined with the avocado and lemon. Excellent combination of flavors, you are very popular in our house.